Missing the Wake-up Call: Why Intelligence Failures Rarely Inspire Improved Performance

After major intelligence failures it is often asked why intelligence and security officials failed to heed the many ‘wake-up calls’ that had been provided by earlier failures and surprises. This article addresses this question by examining intelligence failures as ‘focusing events’, which is a concept used in the literature on government policy making to explain how disasters and crises can stimulate policy change and help organizations and decision-makers learn. It argues that in order for an intelligence failure such as a major terrorist attack to inspire improved intelligence performance – to be a true wake-up call – that failure must not only act as a focusing event to bring more attention to the threat, but it must also lead to increased intelligence collection and greater receptivity toward intelligence on the part of decision-makers.     

Problems of Constitutional Design in Canada: Quebec and the Issue of Bicommunalism

This article traces the attempts by Canada to redesign its federalconstitution to reflect that political reality which most effectivelydistinguishes it from its American neighbor, namely, its bicommunalcharacter. Reviewing various explanations for the constitutionalimpasse, notably that of a conspiracy by English-speaking provincesor of bad faith by the Québec provincial government,the author concludes that in the case of two territorially-basedsocieties, constitution-making becomes a battleground wherelocal elites strive to maintain societal autonomy and make useof governmental institutions to achieve their own objectives.Thus the retreat from bicommunalism, which has characterizedthe 1982 and 1987 constitutional reform exercises, should beseen not so much as a failure of federal-provincial diplomacy,but of the difficulties in accommodating two competing and mutuallyexclusive strategies of state-building.     

The First China Watchers: British Intelligence Officers in China, 1878–1900

In 1878, Britain developed the first systematic intelligence collection and analysis of China by a Western nation. Undertaken in response to intelligence failure and military defeat, the British Army in India established an intelligence section in Beijing using small numbers of Chinese-speaking British military officers. Their reports reveal their struggles to understand a culture and government radically different than their own and express a strong respect for Chinese military capabilities. The intelligence reports produced are a unique window into British history, intelligence practices and Chinese strategic thinking.     

Problems in the Intelligence-Policy Nexus: Rethinking Korea,Tet, and Afghanistan

Accusations of failure by elements of the US intelligence community (IC) have followed in the wake of nearly every war and terrorist bombing since Japan's successful strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941. This article will illustrate how some problems that exist inside the ‘intelligence-policy nexus’ are beyond the control of the IC. By investigating the dynamics and tensions that exist between producers of intelligence (the IC) and the consumers of those products (policy-makers), we review three different types of alleged failure. First, by revisiting the Chinese intervention in Korea, we show that a rarely listed case in the literature is in fact a classic example of producer-based failure generated from within the IC. However, in our study of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War (1968), we show that the alleged intelligence failure by producers should be more accurately described as a ‘failure of intelligence’ by consumers. Third, by revisiting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979), we conclude that there existed neither a producer nor a consumer failure. The Carter Administration made a conscious policy choice to act surprised (when it was not).     

In pursuit of happiness: Life satisfaction drives political support

It is argued in this article that citizens in democracies use their subjective well-being (SWB) as an evaluative criterion when deciding how willing they are to support and comply with government dictates (political system support). When life is satisfactory, government authorities are rewarded with support, when it is not, citizens punish authorities by withholding their support. To make sense of the relationship, it is suggested that citizens act as if they have signed a happiness contract with ‘those in power’. In support of this argument, comparative survey data shows that SWB predicts attitudes on political system support across country contexts and under strong control conditions. Establishing that the relationship is causal, panel data documents that attitudes on political system support can be undermined following the termination of a close personal relationship, and that the causal effect is mediated via changes in SWB. Finally, as predicted, the happiness-support relationship is weaker among individuals who are high on spirituality/religiousness and attribute blame for external events to both worldly and non-worldly powers.     

What motivates adherence to medical recommendations? The procedural justice approach to gaining deference in the medical arena

Although it is within their long‐term interest, patients often fail to follow health care recommendations made by medical experts. This failure results in the widespread occurrence of preventable health problems and a significant increase in health care costs. Taking a new approach to confronting this issue, this paper examines whether the procedural justice model, which has been useful in explaining cooperation with legal and managerial authorities, can provide a basis for increasing patients' willingness to voluntarily adhere to health care recommendations. Three studies tested and supported this proposition. Study 1 experimentally manipulated physicians' procedural fairness or unfairness to explore its influence on patients' acceptance of doctors' recommendations. Study 2 used patients' reports about the fairness of their personal physicians and linked those evaluations to their willingness to follow their doctor's recommendations. Finally, study 3 explored the role of general procedural justice judgments in promoting willingness to accept health policies when they are advocated by private doctors and government health care authorities. The results of all three studies support the argument that when health care authorities use fair procedures, patients are more likely to accept their recommendations. Importantly, this procedural justice effect is distinct from, and in some cases stronger than, the influence of competence.     

Intelligence and the Media: The Press,Government Secrecy and the ‘Buster’ Crabb Affair

This article explores the official cover up of the mysterious disappearance of naval frogman Lionel Buster Crabb in 1956. Existing histories of the affair have tended to focus on the manner of Crabb's death, advancing a series of plausible and suitably implausible explanations. Using recently declassified sources, this article, in contrast, seeks to use the Crabb affair as a window onto government secrecy and relations between the press and the intelligence services. It is argued that the affair was a climacteric for the intelligence community and its relationship with Fleet Street, rupturing long-standing taboos about secret service work and bringing to the fore a brand of investigative journalist determined to make front-page news of intelligence shortcomings and failure.     

Sudan's Security Agencies: Fragmentation,Visibility and Mimicry, 1908–89

This article contends that, in the period under study, government security agencies in both colonial and post-colonial Sudan have failed to dominate society. It attributes this failure to the limited resources and limited ambitions of the state, and the fact that its security organs were thus weakly institutionalized. The fact that these failures persisted after independence, in spite of the efforts of post-colonial governments to expand their intelligence agencies, demonstrated the divisions within the state and the extent to which it could be captured by competing political and social groups.     

Moderator or Manipulator? How International–Local Relations Emerged as a Function of UN Authority-Building in Cambodia

The success or failure of international peacebuilding missions is predominantly evaluated in reference to interveners’ ability to exercise their mandated authorities. To test the value of an empirically based analysis of authority-building processes in the course of such missions the article turns to the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC, 1992–1993). In order to safeguard the country’s stability many supported the idea of holding presidential elections in addition to the ones for the Constituent Assembly forming the new government. To organize such unforeseen elections UNTAC would have had to change its mandate as determined by the Paris Peace Accords (PPA). Based on extensive archival research the paper analyses the debate surrounding this proposal as a series of legitimacy claims that were selectively recognized and rejected. The article concludes that evaluations of peacebuilding missions are indeed too focused on interveners’ authority to decide, while neglecting or underestimating challenges to their authority to interpret. This fosters a false sense of control over the direction of political processes.     

Bureaucratic Resistance to International Intelligence Cooperation – The Case of Europol

Abstract

This article analyses the gap between government ambitions and actual outcomes in the case of European counter terrorism intelligence cooperation. Specifically, it investigates why Europol has not managed to live up to its tasks despite outspoken government support. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism, the study suggests why bureaucrats might be motivated to resist calls for international cooperation. By examining the process by which Europol has developed as an actor in the counter terrorism field, this article shows how development in the field of intelligence cooperation is not exclusively the reflection of government preferences. It concludes by suggesting that scholars could gain greater insight from a less state centric approach to the study of intelligence. In addition, the article suggests that policy makers cultivate a greater familiarity with bureaucratic factors and that they continually work with those factors in mind.     

Territorial government reforms at the time of financial crisis: the dawn of metropolitan cities in Italy

On 1 January 2015 a new institution, the metropolitan city, took its place among the Italian territorial authorities. Despite its incorporation in the Italian Constitution since 2001, the metropolitan city become a reality only when the national government carried out a process of reform and transformation of Italian territorial government by transforming 10 large cities into metropolitan cities and depriving other intermediate governments (regions and provinces) of their fundamental competences. This article critically reviews the activation of metropolitan cities and the reshuffle of Italian territorial authorities. It stresses the way in which this reform marks the shift towards a new phase of Italian regionalism, which is dominated both by a dynamic of recentralizing intergovernmental relations and by the resulting loss for provincial and regional governments.     

NEGOTIATING HOUSING POLICY THE QUEENSLAND HOUSING COMMISSION AND FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, 1945–64

Abstract: An examination of a single institution and its relationships with different levels of government can be used to question commonly held interpretations. This study of the Queensland Housing Commission (QHC) indicates that there is some need to reassess the effectiveness of tied grants as a mechanism for commonwealth intervention in areas of state concern. In Queensland, at least, the state government played a much more significant role in determining both the overall direction of the housing authority and its day-to-day operations. This suggests that the assumption that statutory authorities have some autonomy from direct government intervention may not always be appropriate. The weakness of local government in Australia is acknowledged but it is important to note that state government instrumentalities have contributed significantly to this weakness. This study of the QHC provides one example of how local autonomy can be compromised.     

Improving Intelligence Studies as an Academic Discipline

As the field of intelligence studies develops as an academic complement to the practice of national security intelligence, it is providing a base of knowledge for intelligence practitioners to interpret their past, understand their present, and forecast their future. It also provides the basis for broader understanding of intelligence as a function of government for other government and security officials, academicians, and the general public. In recent years there has been significant growth in the numbers and kinds of intelligence-related educational and training opportunities, with the knowledge taught in these courses and programs derived from the body of intelligence studies scholarship. The question posed here is: to what extent is this body of knowledge sufficient as a basis for the development of intelligence studies as an academic discipline?     

The Spanish Intelligence Community: A Diffuse Reality

The functioning and composition of the Spanish Intelligence Community is not regulated in detail by any legal regulations, and neither the intelligence service nor the government have specified these despite the repeated references they make to them. This article sets out to establish what actually constitutes the Intelligence Community in Spain; thus, after a brief theoretical discussion in which the two major categories of members – consumers and producers – are identified, a model of the intelligence community in Spain is set forth on the basis of the interrelations between its members and their roles in the decision-making process. In its preparation, besides analyzing the existing legislation, 52 interviews were carried out with individual participants in all the structures, so as to reach an understanding of the role played by each one, to evaluate its performance and to propose some guidelines for improvement.     

The usefulness of key performance indicators to public accountability authorities in East Asia

Has the mandated reporting of key performance indicators (KPIs) by public agencies to public accountability or reporting authorities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore helped these authorities in their task to hold the agencies to account? This article argues that the sheer existence of KPIs in public agencies' annual reports and budget papers does not automatically lead to their effective use by the authorities for making decisions about the agencies' performance achievements. The utilization of KPIs for making decisions by the participating authorities in these countries could be best described as careful and cautious because of their perceptions that the KPIs have failed to meet their performance information needs. Since the implementation of a performance measurement and reporting system has been linked to both instrumental and symbolic benefits, perhaps the main value of the current systems lies less with their ability to bring about instrumental benefits to reporting authorities and other stakeholders. Instead, their primary strength may be skewed towards their capacity to accrue symbolic benefits for the government. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Indian spies inside Pakistan: South Asian human intelligence across borders

This article examines India’s historical efforts to spy inside Pakistan from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. It draws from memoirs of notable Indian spies who were jailed for espionage in Pakistan and spy ‘fiction’ written by former Indian intelligence and military officers who allege their writing is based on actual cases. The article highlights commonalities among Indian spies using the words of Indian officers to better understand human intelligence efforts inside Pakistan. It finds that Indian spies in these books have initially been Hindus or from multi-religious families, from the Indian-Pakistan border and have been poorly treated by the Indian government and its intelligence services.     

Integration of strategic and operational intelligence during the Peninsular war

Wellington is well known for his understanding of the importance of intelligence, but so far history has recorded that he presided over a one-man intelligence department, himself being the only analyst of what proved to be a massive quantity of raw information. New research highlighted in this article reveals that this has been an inaccurate interpretation. The British government also acted to establish a civilian network of correspondents and agents communicating with the British ambassadors to Spain and Portugal. Wellington's main priority was to integrate the ‘strategic intelligence’ collected by government agents with his own ‘operational intelligence’. Instead, analysis was conducted more by Wellington's subordinates in the field, applying their personal localized expertise to the information they received. In this way, an early and primitive form of the staff system later developed by the Prussians was created in the Peninsular War.     

Australian Rural Local Governments and Environmental Sustainability: An Evaluation of Progress

Local government is often characterised as being well-placed to enact a successful agenda for environmental sustainability because of its closeness to both people and the environment. The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which this assumption is correct in terms of local government environmental policies and programs in rural Australia. Using case studies with eight local government authorities in Queensland and New South Wales, the article documents three different positions on a continuum of environmental engagement. These are 'disengaged', 'moving towards engagement' and 'engaged'. The article concludes by arguing that the resource constraints facing rural local councils limit their capacity to engage with environmental management.     

‘You will be responsible to the GOC’. Stovepiping and the problem of divergent intelligence gathering networks in Northern Ireland, 1969–1975

From the beginning of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, two different strands of British intelligence were developed in Northern Ireland that failed to effectively cooperate or coordinate their efforts with one another. Though central government was aware (and often opposed) the lack of singular control over intelligence in the province, they were unable to wrest control of security intelligence from the hands of the Army and Special Branch. This problem, meant that a Security intelligence ‘stovepipe’ emerged and that this stovepipe operated without reference (and at times in opposition) to policy initiatives also being pursued by the UK government at the time.     

Electoral system innovation: A comparison of the lower saxony electoral laws of 1946 and 1977, their origins and effects

This study is concerned with two electoral laws introduced in Lower Saxony for local government elections: the first post-war law (1946) introduced by the British occupation authorities, and the most recent (1977) law, the product of the CDU-FDP coalition in Lower Saxony, used for the 1981 local government elections. The background to each of these laws is presented, with emphasis on their political context and the goals sought by the authorities of the time. The article then examines the actual effects of each law, and explores some of the unintentional effects that emerged. The conclusion sets the problem of electoral-system innovation in the wider context of the relationship between electoral change and political behaviour.